Wormhole (51 page)

As Jennifer shoved the unconscious Trotsky aside and took over at the secondary control console, Heather saw Mark rip away the metal panel covering the electronics powering the primary stasis field. Mark had less than a minute to restore power to the primary field generator in order for it to pick up the secondary stasis field generator’s initial mission, which was as important as Jennifer’s taking control of the anomaly with the secondary stasis field.

As she watched the anomaly pulse energy into the containment field, equations cascaded through Heather’s mind. The handoff from the primary to the secondary field generator had been expertly handled, but matter had leaked in, sending the anomaly into a death spiral. Until the primary stasis field regained power to seal the portal, Stephenson couldn’t activate
the wormhole device. If Mark was late by even a few seconds, none of this was going to matter.

“Primary stasis field power back online!”

A cheer went up from the ATACC as Dr. Stephenson shifted at his console.

“Immediate wormhole generation commencing.”

No time for a countdown. Just enough to create the wormhole and validate the far end’s space-time coordinates; then Jennifer would modulate the secondary stasis field to allow it to pass the anomaly through the primary and out into deep space. Then Jen would use the secondary field to destroy the gateway before Stephenson could open it up to the invaders.

Heather refined her calculations. Five minutes and seventeen seconds until the growing event horizon spilled out of the containment field and swept everyone to his or her ultimate destiny. If everything went according to plan, they should have two minutes to spare.

If everything went according to plan.

“Why don’t we have detonation?”

General Smith’s voice over the secure telephone unit carried a tension that Captain Everett could feel like static electricity.

“Sir, we’ve lost comms to the nukes.”

“Captain, I don’t care if you have to manually initiate, I need that detonation. Whatever it takes.”

“Wilco.”

“Captain. Your country is counting on you.”

Captain Everett set the handset back in its cradle, then began running toward the doorway that led to the ATLAS cavern. He was going to die today anyway. But maybe, just maybe, he could pull the plug on the thing that was about to eat his wife, his baby girl, and the whole damn planet.

“Far-gate active!”

The notification entered Commander Ketaan-Ra’s mind through the nano-bot communication swarm distributed throughout his brain.

“Synchronization?”

“Not yet initiated from the far end.”

“Why not?”

“It appears the wormhole is directed at a point in galactic zone 3AF2344XZ.”

Ketaan-Ra hissed. He’d waited too long to have something go wrong now.

“Override from this end. Lock it down now.”

“Dangerous.”

“Do it.”

“As you command.”

As power was diverted to the activating gateway, Ketaan-Ra’s detachment came to the ready. When the synchronization reached its final stage, Ketaan-Ra braced himself as the millions of nano-bots throughout his body compensated for the new world’s atmosphere, gravity, and pressure differential. The process was straightforward. Start the change as the gateway went final, charge through the opening as the change progressed, arrive in the new world ready to breathe its air and function in its environment. It always hurt and this time was no different.

Unable to remember the atmosphere he’d been born breathing, Ketaan-Ra exhaled his final lungful of the ammonia-methane mixture he’d come to regard as normal, and leaped through the portal into a nitrogen-oxygen world.

Mark tossed the steel panel onto the floor behind him, flipped onto his back, and pulled his head and shoulders into the electrical access duct. To his neurally enhanced eyesight, the limited ambient lighting seeping into the electrical panel from the cavern was more than adequate.

Since he’d rigged the power circuits for the primary and secondary stasis control panels, he knew what he was looking for without need of the normal test and evaluation procedures. Snapping open the cover on the primary control circuit panel, he found the faulty circuit immediately, a bad amplifier module on the main circuit board. Funny, all that power controlled by a tiny transistor. It took only a trickle of current to the transistor to turn on the main power channel. Conversely, the denial of that trickle cut the main power in an instant. Mark had counted on that when he’d installed the module with the faulty resistor, one
chosen to build up heat and burn out within a minute of primary stasis control power-up.

The pungent odor of burned insulation tickled his nostrils as he grabbed the correct screwdriver from his tool belt and spun the first of eight screws free, catching each in his palm as it fell. Snapping the module free of its mounts, Mark snapped the ribbon cable free and tossed the useless circuit card out onto the floor by his feet.

Grabbing his toolkit, he popped open the top, selected the replacement module, and began reinstallation. The kit contained replacements for several of the high-priority circuits, but it didn’t hurt that Mark had known exactly which one would blow and when.

As badly as they’d needed the primary stasis control to fail, they needed it back online shortly thereafter. Just enough downtime for Jen to tranquilize Dr. Trotsky and take over operation of the secondary stasis controls. Dr. Stephenson already recognized that she had far more talent than the older man. If not for Russian political pressure, Trotsky’s uncle being the president of the Russian Federation, Stephenson would have already replaced Trotsky with the postdoc she impersonated.

Snapping the new module in place, Mark tightened the last of the screws, and thrust himself out of the compartment and back into the cavern.

As he watched, twenty meters away the portal activated. The effect was instantaneous. One moment the black steel interior was empty, the next a star field replaced it, the view into space so spectacularly clear that Mark expected to be sucked out into the endless expanse. The fact that he wasn’t confirmed not only that the primary stasis field was back online, but also that Dr. Stephenson had used it to seal the gateway. Nothing would be passing through that field without the correct modulation code,
and even then, after passing through the film, the object would be subject to the instantaneous changes in pressure, gravity, temperature, and atmosphere that the far side had to offer.

All Stephenson needed to do was validate that the space-time coordinates of the far end were far enough from Earth that the anomaly would pose no further threat, a near-certainty given the vast expanse available; then Jennifer would use the secondary stasis field to thrust the forming black hole through the portal. Immediately after that she would use the stasis field generator to destroy the gateway. After that they’d have fifteen minutes to get to Jack’s rendezvous point.

Then the wormhole shifted.

Dr. Donald Stephenson clenched his jaw, lines of concentration burrowing fresh fissures in his forehead. He could be angry later. Right now he had to fix this giant mess they found themselves in.

The almost disastrous handoff of anomaly containment to Dr. Trotsky’s station had shocked him. If not for the decisive actions of Trotsky’s impressive postdoc, taking over the secondary controls when Trotsky fainted, they’d already be dead. She hadn’t wasted a second checking on Trotsky’s condition, practically throwing the unconscious man out of his chair as she slid in to replace him.

As he finished sealing the portal with the primary stasis field, Dr. Stephenson activated the gateway. A tremor shook the cavern floor, rattling the scaffolding, and producing a momentary fluctuation in the power grid. Stephenson adjusted the controls to compensate, allowing the wormhole to come into being at its own
pace. A glance at the impedance and temperature measurements for the thick super-cooled power cables brought the barest hint of a smile to his lips. Superconductivity was holding, despite the awesome current flowing into his gateway.

From his perch he could see the entire ATACC, had a direct view down into the portal itself. The scientists looked frozen in time, eyes locked on the anomaly trapped within the secondary containment field, the glowing blue orb reminiscent of a giant fortune teller’s crystal ball.

In front of Stephenson, beside the computer keyboard, the gateway controls looked like a concert equalizer, an assortment of sliders and knobs that could be adjusted manually or set automatically via the computer. Dr. Stephenson leaned forward and pushed the largest slider all the way to the top. Within the gateway a star-field appeared, wavered, stabilized.

As he prepared to validate the coordinates, they changed, an altogether different scene appearing within the portal. What the hell? This wasn’t supposed to happen yet. As Donald Stephenson stared at the army assembled in the vaulted chamber on the other end of the gateway, three alien creatures leaped across the threshold.

Then the portal shifted again.

“What the hell?”

The imagery unfolding in Raul’s sensor array made no sense, momentarily freezing him into inaction. Despite the initial glitches, the gateway had gone active, the far end of the wormhole targeted into empty space. The anomaly should have already been shoved through the portal. Instead, the gateway had somehow synchronized with the Kasari gateway. And, much to his horror, the lead members of the assault cohort leaped through the portal.